Physician Reimbursement

Update

As part of the COVID relief and end-of-year package, Congress offset the majority of cut to Medicare reimbursement that was expected to take place on January 1, 2021. CMS just published the new Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) conversion factor—which converts code values into dollar amounts—based on that legislation, and instead of that original 10.2 percent cut, a service performed in 2021 will now be paid only 3.3 percent less than what it was paid in 2020. However, because ACEP was able to secure that increase in the code values by CMS for our ED E/M codes, you will likely not see any of that decrease. In fact, you may actually see an increase in your Medicare payments overall (and remember, many private payors base their payments on Medicare rates).

This is the result of years of work ACEP has done to increase the value of certain EM codes; click here to learn more.